The door of the editorial room of the "Excelsior Magazine" began tocreak painfully under the hesitating pressure of an uncertain andunfamiliar hand. This continued until with a start of irritationthe editor faced directly about, throwing his leg over the arm ofhis chair with a certain youthful dexterity. With one handgripping its back, the other still grasping a proof-slip, and hispencil in his mouth, he stared at the intruder.

The stranger, despite his hesitating entrance, did not seem in theleast disconcerted. He was a tall man, looking even taller byreason of the long formless overcoat he wore, known as a "duster,"and by a long straight beard that depended from his chin, which hecombed with two reflective fingers as he contemplated the editor.The red dust which still lay in the creases of his garment and inthe curves of his soft felt hat, and left a dusty circle like aprecipitated halo around his feet, proclaimed him, if not acountryman, a recent inland importation by coach. "Busy?" he said,in a grave but pleasant voice. "I kin wait. Don't mind ME. Goon."

The editor indicated a chair with his disengaged hand and plungedagain into his proof-slips. The stranger surveyed the scantfurniture and appointments of the office with a look of gravecuriosity, and then, taking a chair, fixed an earnest, penetratinggaze on the editor's profile. The editor felt it, and, withoutlooking up, said--

"Well, go on."

"But you're busy. I kin wait."

"I shall not be less busy this morning. I can listen."

"I want you to give me the name of a certain person who writes inyour magazine."

The editor's eye glanced at the second right-hand drawer of hisdesk. It did not contain the names of his contributors, but whatin the traditions of his office was accepted as an equivalent,--arevolver. He had never yet presented either to an inquirer. Buthe laid aside his proofs, and, with a slight darkening of hisyouthful, discontented face, said, "What do you want to know for?"

The question was so evidently unexpected that the stranger's facecolored slightly, and he hesitated. The editor meanwhile, withouttaking his eyes from the man, mentally ran over the contents of thelast magazine. They had been of a singularly peaceful character.There seemed to be nothing to justify homicide on his part or thestranger's. Yet there was no knowing, and his questioner's bucolicappearance by no means precluded an assault. Indeed, it had been alegend of the office that a predecessor had suffered vicariouslyfrom a geological hammer covertly introduced into a scientificcontroversy by an irate professor.

"As we make ourselves responsible for the conduct of the magazine,"continued the young editor, with mature severity, "we do not giveup the names of our contributors. If you do not agree with theiropinions"--

"But I DO," said the stranger, with his former composure, "and Ireckon that's why I want to know who wrote those verses called'Underbrush,' signed 'White Violet,' in your last number. They'repow'ful pretty."

The editor flushed slightly, and glanced instinctively around forany unexpected witness of his ludicrous mistake. The fear ofridicule was uppermost in his mind, and he was more relieved at hismistake not being overheard than at its groundlessness.

"The verses ARE pretty," he said, recovering himself, with acritical air, "and I am glad you like them. But even then, youknow, I could not give you the lady's name without her permission.I will write to her and ask it, if you like."

The actual fact was that the verses had been sent to himanonymously from a remote village in the Coast Range,--the addressbeing the post-office and the signature initials.

The stranger looked disturbed. "Then she ain't about hereanywhere?" he said, with a vague gesture. "She don't belong tothe office?"

The young editor beamed with tolerant superiority: "No, I am sorryto say."

"I should like to have got to see her and kinder asked her a fewquestions," continued the stranger, with the same reflectiveseriousness. "You see, it wasn't just the rhymin' o' them verses,--and they kinder sing themselves to ye, don't they?--it wasn't thechyce o' words,--and I reckon they allus hit the idee in the centreshot every time,--it wasn't the idees and moral she sort o' drewout o' what she was tellin',--but it was the straight thingitself,--the truth!"

"The truth?" repeated the editor.

"Yes, sir. I've bin there. I've seen all that she's seen in thebrush--the little flicks and checkers o' light and shadder down inthe brown dust that you wonder how it ever got through the dark ofthe woods, and that allus seems to slip away like a snake or alizard if you grope. I've heard all that she's heard there--thecreepin', the sighin', and the whisperin' through the bracken andthe ground-vines of all that lives there."

"You seem to be a poet yourself," said the editor, with apatronizing smile.

"I'm a lumberman, up in Mendocino," returned the stranger, withsublime naivete. "Got a mill there. You see, sightin' standin'timber and selectin' from the gen'ral show of the trees in theground and the lay of roots hez sorter made me take notice." Hepaused. "Then," he added, somewhat despondingly, "you don't knowwho she is?"

"No," said the editor, reflectively; "not even if it is really aWOMAN who writes."

"Eh?"

"Well, you see, 'White Violet' may as well be the nom de plume of aman as of a woman, especially if adopted for the purpose ofmystification. The handwriting, I remember, WAS more boyish thanfeminine."

"No," returned the stranger doggedly, "it wasn't no MAN. There'sideas and words there that only come from a woman: baby-talk to thebirds, you know, and a kind of fearsome keer of bugs and creepin'things that don't come to a man who wears boots and trousers.Well," he added, with a return to his previous air of resigneddisappointment, "I suppose you don't even know what she's like?"

"No," responded the editor, cheerfully. Then, following an ideasuggested by the odd mingling of sentiment and shrewd perception inthe man before him, he added: "Probably not at all like anythingyou imagine. She may be a mother with three or four children; oran old maid who keeps a boarding-house; or a wrinkled school-mistress; or a chit of a school-girl. I've had some fair versesfrom a red-haired girl of fourteen at the Seminary," he concludedwith professional coolness.

The stranger regarded him with the naive wonder of an inexperiencedman. Having paid this tribute to his superior knowledge, heregained his previous air of grave perception. "I reckon she ain'tnone of them. But I'm keepin' you from your work. Good-by. Myname's Bowers--Jim Bowers, of Mendocino. If you're up my way, giveme a call. And if you do write to this yer 'White Violet,' andshe's willin', send me her address."

He shook the editor's hand warmly--even in its literal significanceof imparting a good deal of his own earnest caloric to the editor'sfingers--and left the room. His footfall echoed along the passageand died out, and with it, I fear, all impression of his visit fromthe editor's mind, as he plunged again into the silent task beforehim.

Presently he was conscious of a melodious humming and a lightleisurely step at the entrance of the hall. They continued on inan easy harmony and unaffected as the passage of a bird. Both werepleasant and both familiar to the editor. They belonged to JackHamlin, by vocation a gambler, by taste a musician, on his way fromhis apartments on the upper floor, where he had just risen, to dropinto his friend's editorial room and glance over the exchanges, aswas his habit before breakfast.

The door opened lightly. The editor was conscious of a faint odorof scented soap, a sensation of freshness and cleanliness, theimpression of a soft hand like a woman's on his shoulder and, likea woman's, momentarily and playfully caressing, the passage of agraceful shadow across his desk, and the next moment Jack Hamlinwas ostentatiously dusting a chair with an open newspaperpreparatory to sitting down.

"You ought to ship that office-boy of yours, if he can't keepthings cleaner," he said, suspending his melody to eye grimly thedust which Mr. Bowers had shaken from his departing feet.

The editor did not look up until he had finished revising adifficult paragraph. By that time Mr. Hamlin had comfortablysettled himself on a cane sofa, and, possibly out of deference tohis surroundings, had subdued his song to a peculiarly low, soft,and heartbreaking whistle as he unfolded a newspaper. Clean andfaultless in his appearance, he had the rare gift of being able toget up at two in the afternoon with much of the dewy freshness andall of the moral superiority of an early riser.

"You ought to have been here just now, Jack," said the editor.

"Not a row, old man, eh?" inquired Jack, with a faint accession ofinterest.

"No," said the editor, smiling. Then he related the incidents ofthe previous interview, with a certain humorous exaggeration whichwas part of his nature. But Jack did not smile.

"You ought to have booted him out of the ranch on sight," he said."What right had he to come here prying into a lady's affairs?--atleast a lady as far as HE knows. Of course she's some old blowzywith frumpled hair trying to rope in a greenhorn with a string ofwords and phrases," concluded Jack, carelessly, who had an equallycynical distrust of the sex and of literature.

"That's about what I told him," said the editor.

"That's just what you SHOULDN'T have told him," returned Jack."You ought to have stuck up for that woman as if she'd been yourown mother. Lord! you fellows don't know how to run a magazine.You ought to let ME sit on that chair and tackle your customers."

"What would you have done, Jack?" asked the editor, much amused tofind that his hitherto invincible hero was not above the ordinaryhuman weakness of offering advice as to editorial conduct.

"Done?" reflected Jack. "Well, first, sonny, I shouldn't keep arevolver in a drawer that I had to OPEN to get at."

"But what would you have said?"

"I should simply have asked him what was the price of lumber atMendocino," said Jack, sweetly, "and when he told me, I should havesaid that the samples he was offering out of his own head wouldn'tsuit. You see, you don't want any trifling in such matters. Youwrite well enough, my boy," continued he, turning over his paper,"but what you're lacking in is editorial dignity. But go on withyour work. Don't mind me."

Thus admonished, the editor again bent over his desk, and hisfriend softly took up his suspended song. The editor had notproceeded far in his corrections when Jack's voice again broke thesilence.

"Where are those d----d verses, anyway?"

Without looking up, the editor waved his pencil towards an uncutcopy of the "Excelsior Magazine" lying on the table.

But that functionary, now wholly lost and wandering in the non-sequitur of an involved passage in the proof before him, only wavedan impatient remonstrance with his pencil and knit his brows.Jack, with a sigh, took up the magazine.

A long silence followed, broken only by the hurried rustling ofsheets of copy and an occasional exasperated start from the editor.The sun was already beginning to slant a dusty beam across hisdesk; Jack's whistling had long since ceased. Presently, with anexclamation of relief, the editor laid aside the last proof-sheetand looked up.

Jack Hamlin had closed the magazine, but with one hand thrown overthe back of the sofa he was still holding it, his slim forefingerbetween its leaves to keep the place, and his handsome profile anddark lashes lifted towards the window. The editor, smiling at thisunwonted abstraction, said quietly,--

"I suppose you also wish me to write and ask for permission to giveyou her address?" said the editor, with great gravity.

"No," said Jack, coolly. "I propose to give it to YOU within aweek, and you will pay me with a breakfast. I should like to haveit said that I was once a paid contributor to literature. If Idon't give it to you, I'll stand you a dinner, that's all."

"Done!" said the editor. "And you know nothing of her now?"

"No," said Jack, promptly. "Nor you?"

"No more than I have told you."

"That'll do. So long!" And Jack, carefully adjusting his glossyhat over his curls at an ominously wicked angle, sauntered lightlyfrom the room. The editor, glancing after his handsome figure andhearing him take up his pretermitted whistle as he passed out,began to think that the contingent dinner was by no means aninevitable prospect.

Howbeit, he plunged once more into his monotonous duties. But thefreshness of the day seemed to have departed with Jack, and thelater interruptions of foreman and publisher were of a morepractical character. It was not until the post arrived that thesuperscription on one of the letters caught his eye, and revivedhis former interest. It was the same hand as that of his unknowncontributor's manuscript--ill-formed and boyish. He opened theenvelope. It contained another poem with the same signature, butalso a note--much longer than the brief lines that accompanied thefirst contribution--was scrawled upon a separate piece of paper.This the editor opened first, and read the following, with anamazement that for the moment dominated all other sense:--

MR. EDITOR,--I see you have got my poetry in. But I don't see thespondulix that oughter follow. Perhaps you don't know where tosend it. Then I'll tell you. Send the money to Lock Box 47, GreenSprings P. O., per Wells Fargo's Express, and I'll get it there, onaccount of my parents not knowing. We're very high-toned, and theywould think it's low making poetry for papers. Send amount usuallypaid for poetry in your papers. Or may be you think I make poetryfor nothing? That's where you slip up!

Yours truly, WHITE VIOLET.

P. S.--If you don't pay for poetry, send this back. It's as goodas what you did put in, and is just as hard to make. You hear me?that's me--all the time.

WHITE VIOLET.

The editor turned quickly to the new contribution for somecorroboration of what he felt must be an extraordinary blunder.But no! The few lines that he hurriedly read breathed the sameatmosphere of intellectual repose, gentleness, and imagination asthe first contribution. And yet they were in the same handwritingas the singular missive, and both were identical with the previousmanuscript.

Had he been the victim of a hoax, and were the verses not original?No; they were distinctly original, local in color, and even localin the use of certain old English words that were common in theSouthwest. He had before noticed the apparent incongruity of thehandwriting and the text, and it was possible that for the purposesof disguise the poet might have employed an amanuensis. But howcould he reconcile the incongruity of the mercenary and slangypurport of the missive itself with the mental habit of its author?Was it possible that these inconsistent qualities existed in theone individual? He smiled grimly as he thought of his visitorBowers and his friend Jack. He was startled as he remembered thepurely imaginative picture he had himself given to the seriouslyinterested Bowers of the possible incongruous personality of thepoetess.

Was he quite fair in keeping this from Jack? Was it reallyhonorable, in view of their wager? It is to be feared that a veryhuman enjoyment of Jack's possible discomfiture quite as much asany chivalrous friendship impelled the editor to ring eventuallyfor the office-boy.

"See if Mr. Hamlin is in his rooms."

The editor then sat down, and wrote rapidly as follows:--

DEAR MADAM,--You are as right as you are generous in supposing thatonly ignorance of your address prevented the manager frompreviously remitting the honorarium for your beautiful verses. Henow begs to send it to you in the manner you have indicated. Asthe verses have attracted deserved attention, I have been appliedto for your address. Should you care to submit it to me to be usedat my discretion, I shall feel honored by your confidence. Butthis is a matter left entirely to your own kindness and betterjudgment. Meantime, I take pleasure in accepting "White Violet's"present contribution, and remain, dear madam, your obedient servant,

THE EDITOR.

The boy returned as he was folding the letter. Mr. Hamlin was notonly NOT in his rooms, but, according to his negro servant Pete,had left town an hour ago for a few days in the country.

"Did he say where?" asked the editor, quickly.

"No, sir: he didn't know."

"Very well. Take this to the manager." He addressed the letter,and, scrawling a few hieroglyphics on a memorandum-tag, tore itoff, and handed it with the letter to the boy.

An hour later he stood in the manager's office. "The next numberis pretty well made up," he said, carelessly, "and I think oftaking a day or two off."

"Certainly," said the manager. "It will do you good. Where do youthink you'll go?"

"I haven't quite made up my mind."

CHAPTER II

"Hullo!" said Jack Hamlin.

He had halted his mare at the edge of an abrupt chasm. It did notappear to be fifty feet across, yet its depth must have been nearlytwo hundred to where the hidden mountain-stream, of which it wasthe banks, alternately slipped, tumbled, and fell with murmuringand monotonous regularity. One or two pine-trees growing on theopposite edge, loosened at the roots, had tilted their straightshafts like spears over the abyss, and the top of one, resting onthe upper branches of a sycamore a few yards from him, served as anaerial bridge for the passage of a boy of fourteen to whom Mr.Hamlin's challenge was addressed.

"Is that the only way across this infernal hole, or the one youprefer for exercise?" continued Hamlin, gravely.

The boy sat down on a bough, allowing his bare feet to dangle overthe dizzy depths, and critically examined his questioner. Jack hadon this occasion modified his usual correct conventional attire bya tasteful combination of a vaquero's costume, and, in loose whitebullion-fringed trousers, red sash, jacket, and sombrero, lookedinfinitely more dashing and picturesque than his original.Nevertheless, the boy did not reply. Mr. Hamlin's pride in hisusual ascendency over women, children, horses, and all unreasoninganimals was deeply nettled. He smiled, however, and said, quietly,--

"Come here, George Washington. I want to talk to you."

Without rejecting this august yet impossible title, the boypresently lifted his feet, and carelessly resumed his passageacross the chasm until, reaching the sycamore, he began to lethimself down squirrel-wise, leap by leap, with an occasionaltrapeze swinging from bough to bough, dropping at last easily tothe ground. Here he appeared to be rather good-looking, albeit thesun and air had worked a miracle of brown tan and freckles on hisexposed surfaces, until the mottling of his oval cheeks looked likea polished bird's egg. Indeed, it struck Mr. Hamlin that he was asintensely a part of that sylvan seclusion as the hidden brook thatmurmured, the brown velvet shadows that lay like trappings on thewhite flanks of his horse, the quivering heat, and the stingingspice of bay. Mr. Hamlin had vague ideas of dryads and fauns, butat that moment would have bet something on the chances of theirsurvival.

"I did not hear what you said just now, general," he remarked, withgreat elegance of manner, "but I know from your reputation that itcould not be a lie. I therefore gather that there IS another wayacross."

The boy smiled; rather, his very short upper lip apparentlyvanished completely over his white teeth, and his very black eyes,which showed a great deal of the white around them, danced in theirorbits.

"But YOU couldn't find it," he said, slyly.

"No more could you find the half-dollar I dropped just now, unlessI helped you."

Mr. Hamlin, by way of illustration, leaned deeply over his leftstirrup, and pointed to the ground. At the same moment a brighthalf-dollar absolutely appeared to glitter in the herbage at thepoint of his finger. It was a trick that had always brought greatpleasure and profit to his young friends, and some loss anddiscomfiture of wager to his older ones.

The boy picked up the coin: "There's a dip and a level crossingabout a mile over yer,"--he pointed,--"but it's through the woods,and they're that high with thick bresh."

"With what?"

"Bresh," repeated the boy; "THAT,"--pointing to a few fronds ofbracken growing in the shadow of the sycamore.

"Oh! underbrush?"

"Yes; I said 'bresh,'" returned the boy, doggedly. "YOU might getthrough, ef you war spry, but not your hoss. Where do you want togo, anyway?"

"Do you know, George," said Mr. Hamlin, lazily throwing his rightleg over the horn of his saddle for greater ease and deliberationin replying, "it's very odd, but that's just what I'D like to know.Now, what would YOU, in your broad statesmanlike views of thingsgenerally, advise?"

Quite convinced of the stranger's mental unsoundness, the boyglanced again at his half-dollar, as if to make sure of itsintegrity, pocketed it doubtfully, and turned away.

"Where are you going?" said Hamlin, resuming his seat with theagility of a circus-rider, and spurring forward.

"To Green Springs, where I live, two miles over the ridge on thefar slope,"--indicating the direction.

"Can I have been mistaken?" said Hamlin, lifting his hand to hisforehead with grieved accents. "Then it seems YOU have. Kindlygive her my love."

"Which one?" asked the boy, with a swift glance of mischief. "I'vegot four."

"The one that's like you," returned Hamlin, with prompt exactitude."Now, where's the 'bresh' you spoke of?"

"Keep along the edge until you come to the log-slide. Foller that,and it'll lead you into the woods. But ye won't go far, I tell ye.When you have to turn back, instead o' comin' back here, you kintake the trail that goes round the woods, and that'll bring ye outinto the stage road ag'in near the post-office at the Green Springscrossin' and the new hotel. That'll be war ye'll turn up, Ireckon," he added, reflectively. "Fellers that come yer gunnin'and fishin' gin'rally do," he concluded, with a half-inquisitiveair.

"Ah?" said Mr. Hamlin, quietly shedding the inquiry. "GreenSprings Hotel is where the stage stops, eh?"

"Yes, and at the post-office," said the boy. "She'll be along heresoon," he added.

"If you mean the Santa Cruz stage," said Hamlin, "she's herealready. I passed her on the ridge half an hour ago."

The boy gave a sudden start, and a quick uneasy expression passedover his face. "Go 'long with ye!" he said, with a forced smile:"it ain't her time yet."

"But I SAW her," repeated Hamlin, much amused. "Are you expectingcompany? Hullo! Where are you off to? Come back."

But his companion had already vanished in the thicket with theundeliberate and impulsive act of an animal. There was a momentaryrustle in the alders fifty feet away, and then all was silent. Thehidden brook took up its monotonous murmur, the tapping of adistant woodpecker became suddenly audible, and Mr. Hamlin wasagain alone.

"Wonder whether he's got parents in the stage, and has been playingtruant here," he mused, lazily. "Looked as if he'd been up to somedevilment, or more like as if he was primed for it. If he'd been alittle older, I'd have bet he was in league with some road-agentsto watch the coach. Just my luck to have him light out as I wasbeginning to get some talk out of him." He paused, looked at hiswatch, and straightened himself in his stirrups. "Four o'clock. Ireckon I might as well try the woods and what that imp calls the'bresh;' I may strike a shanty or a native by the way."

With this determination, Mr. Hamlin urged his horse along the fainttrail by the brink of the watercourse which the boy had justindicated. He had no definite end in view beyond the one that hadbrought him the day before to that locality--his quest of theunknown poetess. His clue would have seemed to ordinary humanitythe faintest. He had merely noted the provincial name of a certainplant mentioned in the poem, and learned that its habitat waslimited to the southern local range; while its peculiar nomenclaturewas clearly of French Creole or Gulf State origin. This gave him alarge though sparsely-populated area for locality, while itsuggested a settlement of Louisianians or Mississippians near theSummit, of whom, through their native gambling proclivities, he wasprofessionally cognizant. But he mainly trusted Fortune. Secure inhis faith in the feminine character of that goddess, he relied agreat deal on her well-known weakness for scamps of his quality.

It was not long before he came to the "slide"--a lightly-cut orshallow ditch. It descended slightly in a course that was far fromstraight, at times diverging to avoid the obstacles of trees orboulders, at times shaving them so closely as to leave smoothabrasions along their sides made by the grinding passage of longlogs down the incline. The track itself was slippery from this,and preoccupied all Hamlin's skill as a horseman, even to the pointof stopping his usual careless whistle. At the end of half an hourthe track became level again, and he was confronted with a singularphenomenon.

He had entered the wood, and the trail seemed to cleave through afar-stretching, motionless sea of ferns that flowed on either sideto the height of his horse's flanks. The straight shafts of thetrees rose like columns from their hidden bases and were lost againin a roof of impenetrable leafage, leaving a clear space of fiftyfeet between, through which the surrounding horizon of sky wasperfectly visible. All the light that entered this vast sylvanhall came from the sides; nothing permeated from above; nothingradiated from below; the height of the crest on which the wood wasplaced gave it this lateral illumination, but gave it also theprofound isolation of some temple raised by long-forgotten hands.In spite of the height of these clear shafts, they seemed dwarfedby the expanse of the wood, and in the farthest perspective thebase of ferns and the capital of foliage appeared almost to meet.As the boy had warned him, the slide had turned aside, skirting thewood to follow the incline, and presently the little trail he nowfollowed vanished utterly, leaving him and his horse adrift breast-high in this green and yellow sea of fronds. But Mr. Hamlin,imperious of obstacles, and touched by some curiosity, continued toadvance lazily, taking the bearings of a larger red-wood in thecentre of the grove for his objective point. The elastic mass gaveway before him, brushing his knees or combing his horse's flankswith wide-spread elfin fingers, and closing up behind him as hepassed, as if to obliterate any track by which he might return.Yet his usual luck did not desert him here. Being on horseback, hefound that he could detect what had been invisible to the boy andprobably to all pedestrians, namely, that the growth was notequally dense, that there were certain thinner and more open spacesthat he could take advantage of by more circuitous progression,always, however, keeping the bearings of the central tree. This heat last reached, and halted his panting horse. Here a new ideawhich had been haunting him since he entered the wood took fullerpossession of him. He had seen or known all this before! Therewas a strange familiarity either in these objects or in theimpression or spell they left upon him. He remembered the verses!Yes, this was the "underbrush" which the poetess had described: thegloom above and below, the light that seemed blown through it likethe wind, the suggestion of hidden life beneath this tangledluxuriance, which she alone had penetrated,--all this was here.But, more than that, here was the atmosphere that she had breathedinto the plaintive melody of her verse. It did not necessarilyfollow that Mr. Hamlin's translation of her sentiment was thecorrect one, or that the ideas her verses had provoked in his mindwere at all what had been hers: in his easy susceptibility he wassimply thrown into a corresponding mood of emotion and relievedhimself with song. One of the verses he had already associated inhis mind with the rhythm of an old plantation melody, and it struckhis fancy to take advantage of the solitude to try its effect.Humming to himself, at first softly, he at last grew bolder, andlet his voice drift away through the stark pillars of the sylvancolonnade till it seemed to suffuse and fill it with no more effortthan the light which strayed in on either side. Sitting thus, hishat thrown a little back from his clustering curls, the white neckand shoulders of his horse uplifting him above the crested mass offern, his red sash the one fleck of color in their olive depths, Iam afraid he looked much more like the real minstrel of the grovethan the unknown poetess who transfigured it. But this, as hasbeen already indicated, was Jack Hamlin's peculiar gift. Even ashe had previously outshone the vaquero in his borrowed dress, henow silenced and supplanted a few fluttering blue-jays--rightfultenants of the wood--with a more graceful and airy presence and afar sweeter voice.

The open horizon towards the west had taken a warmer color from thealready slanting sun when Mr. Hamlin, having rested his horse,turned to that direction. He had noticed that the wood was thinnerthere, and, pushing forward, he was presently rewarded by the soundof far-off wheels, and knew he must be near the high-road that theboy had spoken of. Having given up his previous intention ofcrossing the stream, there seemed nothing better for him to do thanto follow the truant's advice and take the road back to GreenSprings. Yet he was loath to leave the wood, halting on its verge,and turning to look back into its charmed recesses. Once or twice--perhaps because he recalled the words of the poem--that yellowishsea of ferns had seemed instinct with hidden life, and he had evenfancied, here and there, a swaying of its plumed crests. Howbeit,he still lingered long enough for the open sunlight into which hehad obtruded to point out the bravery of his handsome figure. Thenhe wheeled his horse, the light glanced from polished double bitand bridle-fripperies, caught his red sash and bullion buttons,struck a parting flash from his silver spurs, and he was gone!

For a moment the light streamed unbrokenly through the wood. Andthen it could be seen that the yellow mass of undergrowth HAD movedwith the passage of another figure than his own. For ever since hehad entered the shade, a woman, shawled in a vague, shapelessfashion, had watched him wonderingly, eagerly, excitedly, glidingfrom tree to tree as he advanced, or else dropping breathlesslybelow the fronds of fern whence she gazed at him as between partedfingers. When he wheeled she had run openly to the west, albeitwith hidden face and still clinging shawl, and taken a last look athis retreating figure. And then, with a faint but lingering sigh,she drew back into the shadow of the wood again and vanished also.

CHAPTER III

At the end of twenty minutes Mr. Hamlin reined in his mare. He hadjust observed in the distant shadows of a by-lane that intersectedhis road the vanishing flutter of two light print dresses. Withouta moment's hesitation he lightly swerved out of the high-road andfollowed the retreating figures.

As he neared them, they seemed to be two slim young girls,evidently so preoccupied with the rustic amusement of edging eachother off the grassy border into the dust of the track that theydid not perceive his approach. Little shrieks, slight scufflings,and interjections of "Cynthy! you limb!" "Quit that, Eunice, now!"and "I just call that real mean!" apparently drowned the sound ofhis canter in the soft dust. Checking his speed to a gentle trot,and pressing his horse close beside the opposite fence, he passedthem with gravely uplifted hat and a serious, preoccupied air. Butin that single, seemingly conventional glance, Mr. Hamlin had seenthat they were both pretty, and that one had the short upper lip ofhis errant little guide. A hundred yards farther on he halted, asif irresolutely, gazed doubtfully ahead of him, and then turnedback. An expression of innocent--almost childlike--concern wasclouding the rascal's face. It was well, as the two girls haddrawn closely together, having been apparently surprised in themidst of a glowing eulogium of this glorious passing vision by itssudden return. At his nearer approach, the one with the shortupper lip hid that piquant feature and the rest of her rosy facebehind the other's shoulder, which was suddenly and significantlyopposed to the advance of this handsome intruder, with a certaindignity, half real, half affected, but wholly charming. Theprotectress appeared--possibly from her defensive attitude--thesuperior of her companion.

Audacious as Jack was to his own sex, he had early learned thatsuch rare but discomposing graces as he possessed required acertain apologetic attitude when presented to women, and that itwas only a plain man who could be always complacently self-confident in their presence. There was, consequently, a hesitatinglowering of this hypocrite's brown eyelashes as he said, in almostpained accents,--

"I reckon you've taken the wrong road, wherever you're going,"returned the young lady, having apparently made up her mind toresent each of Jack's perfections as a separate impertinence: "thisis a PRIVATE road." She drew herself fairly up here, althoughgurgled at in the ear and pinched in the arm by her companion.

"I beg your pardon," said Jack, meekly. "I see I'm trespassing onyour grounds. I'm very sorry. Thank you for telling me. I shouldhave gone on a mile or two farther, I suppose, until I came to yourhouse," he added, innocently.

"A mile or two! You'd have run chock ag'in' our gate in anotherminit," said the short-lipped one, eagerly. But a sharp nudge fromher companion sent her back again into cover, where she waitedexpectantly for another crushing retort from her protector.

But, alas! it did not come. One cannot be always witty, and Jacklooked distressed. Nevertheless, he took advantage of the pause.

"It was so stupid in me, as I think your brother"--looking atShort-lip--"very carefully told me the road."

The two girls darted quick glances at each other. "Oh, Bawb!" saidthe first speaker, in wearied accents,--"THAT limb! He don'tkeer."

"But he DID care," said Hamlin, quietly, "and gave me a good dealof information. Thanks to him, I was able to see that ferny woodthat's so famous--about two miles up the road. You know--the onethat there's a poem written about!"

The shot told! Short-lip burst into a display of dazzling littleteeth and caught the other girl convulsively by the shoulders. Thesuperior girl bent her pretty brows, and said, "Eunice, what's goneof ye? Quit that!" but, as Hamlin thought, paled slightly.

Short-lip was shamelessly exalted and excited. Really she couldscarcely believe it! She already heard herself relating the wholeoccurrence. Here was the most beautiful young man she had everseen--an entire stranger--talking to them in the most beautiful andnatural way, right in the lane, and reciting poetry to her sister!It was like a novel--only more so. She thought that Cynthia, onthe other hand, looked distressed, and--she must say it--"silly."

All of which Jack noted, and was wise. He had got all he wanted--at present. He gathered up his reins.

"Thank you so much, and your brother, too, Miss Cynthia," he said,without looking up. Then, adding, with a parting glance and smile,"But don't tell Bob how stupid I was," he swiftly departed.

In half an hour he was at the Green Springs Hotel. As he rode intothe stable yard, he noticed that the coach had only just arrived,having been detained by a land-slip on the Summit road. With therecollection of Bob fresh in his mind, he glanced at the loungersat the stage office. The boy was not there, but a moment laterJack detected him among the waiting crowd at the post-officeopposite. With a view of following up his inquiries, he crossedthe road as the boy entered the vestibule of the post-office. Hearrived in time to see him unlock one of a row of numbered letter-boxes rented by subscribers, which occupied a partition by thewindow, and take out a small package and a letter. But in thatbrief glance Mr. Hamlin detected the printed address of the"Excelsior Magazine" on the wrapper. It was enough. Luck wascertainly with him.

He had time to get rid of the wicked sparkle that had lit his darkeyes, and to lounge carelessly towards the boy as the latter brokeopen the package, and then hurriedly concealed it in his jacket-pocket, and started for the door. Mr. Hamlin quickly followed him,unperceived, and, as he stepped into the street, gently tapped himon the shoulder. The boy turned and faced him quickly. But Mr.Hamlin's eyes showed nothing but lazy good-humor.

"Hullo, Bob. Where are you going?"

The boy again looked up suspiciously at this revelation of hisname.

"Home," he said, briefly.

"Oh, over yonder," said Hamlin, calmly. "I don't mind walking withyou as far as the lane."

He saw the boy's eyes glance furtively towards an alley that ranbeside the blacksmith's shop a few rods ahead, and was convincedthat he intended to evade him there. Slipping his arm carelesslyin the youth's, he concluded to open fire at once.

"Bob," he said, with irresistible gravity, "I did not know when Imet you this morning that I had the honor of addressing a poet--none other than the famous author of 'Underbrush.'"

The boy started back, and endeavored to withdraw his arm, but Mr.Hamlin tightened his hold, without, however, changing his carelessexpression.

"You see," he continued, "the editor is a friend of mine, and,being afraid this package might not get into the right hands--asyou didn't give your name--he deputized me to come here and seethat it was all square. As you're rather young, for all you're sogifted, I reckon I'd better go home with you, and take a receiptfrom your parents. That's about square, I think?"

The consternation of the boy was so evident and so far beyond Mr.Hamlin's expectation that he instantly halted him, gazed into hisshifting eyes, and gave a long whistle.

"Who said it was for ME? Wot you talkin' about? Lemme go!" gaspedthe boy, with the short intermittent breath of mingled fear andpassion.

"Bob," said Mr. Hamlin, in a singularly colorless voice which wasvery rare with him, and an expression quite unlike his own, "whatis your little game?"

The boy looked down in dogged silence.

"Out with it! Who are you playing this on?"

"It's all among my own folks; it's nothin' to YOU," said the boy,suddenly beginning to struggle violently, as if inspired by thisextenuating fact.

"Among your own folks, eh? White Violet and the rest, eh? ButSHE'S not in it?"

No reply.

"Hand me over that package. I'll give it back to you again."

The boy handed it to Mr. Hamlin. He read the letter, and found theinclosure contained a twenty-dollar gold-piece. A half-supercilious smile passed over his face at this revelation of theinadequate emoluments of literature and the trifling inducements tocrime. Indeed, I fear the affair began to take a less seriousmoral complexion in his eyes.

"Then White Violet--your sister Cynthia, you know," continued Mr.Hamlin, in easy parenthesis--"wrote for this?" holding the coincontemplatively in his fingers, "and you calculated to nab ityourself?"

The quick searching glance with which Bob received the name of hissister, Mr. Hamlin attributed only to his natural surprise thatthis stranger should be on such familiar terms with her; but theboy responded immediately and bluntly:--

"No! SHE didn't write for it. She didn't want nobody to know whoshe was. Nobody wrote for it but me. Nobody KNEW FOLKS WAS PAIDFOR PO'TRY BUT ME. I found it out from a feller. I wrote for it.I wasn't goin' to let that skunk of an editor have it himself!"

"And you thought YOU would take it," said Hamlin, his voiceresuming its old tone. "Well, George--I mean Bob, your conduct waspraiseworthy, although your intentions were bad. Still, twentydollars is rather too much for your trouble. Suppose we say fiveand call it square?" He handed the astonished boy five dollars."Now, George Washington," he continued, taking four other twenty-dollar pieces from his pocket, and adding them to the inclosure,which he carefully refolded, "I'm going to give you another chanceto live up to your reputation. You'll take that package, and handit to White Violet, and say you found it, just as it is, in thelock-box. I'll keep the letter, for it would knock you endways ifit was seen, and I'll make it all right with the editor. But, asI've got to tell him that I've seen White Violet myself, and knowshe's got it, I expect YOU to manage in some way to have me seeher. I'll manage the rest of it; and I won't blow on you, either.You'll come back to the hotel, and tell me what you've done. Andnow, George " concluded Mr. Hamlin, succeeding at last in fixingthe boy's evasive eye with a peculiar look, "it may be just as wellfor you to understand that I know every nook and corner of thisplace, that I've already been through that underbrush you spoke ofonce this morning, and that I've got a mare that can go whereverYOU can, and a d----d sight quicker!"

"I'll give the package to White Violet," said the boy, doggedly.

"And you'll come back to the hotel?"

The boy hesitated, and then said, "I'll come back."

"All right, then. Adios, general."

Bob disappeared around the corner of a cross-road at a rapid trot,and Mr. Hamlin turned into the hotel.

"Smart little chap that!" he said to the barkeeper.

"You bet!" returned the man, who, having recognized Mr. Hamlin, wasdelighted at the prospect of conversing with a gentleman of suchdecidedly dangerous reputation. "But he's been allowed to run alittle wild since old man Delatour died, and the widder's gotenough to do, I reckon, lookin' arter her four gals, and takin'keer of old Delatour's ranch over yonder. I guess it's pretty hardsleddin' for her sometimes to get clo'es and grub for the famerly,without follerin' Bob around."

"Sharp girls, too, I reckon; one of them writes things for themagazines, doesn't she?--Cynthia, eh?" said Mr. Hamlin, carelessly.

Evidently this fact was not a notorious one to the barkeeper. He,however, said, "Dunno; mabbee; her father was eddicated, and thewidder Delatour, too, though she's sorter queer, I've heard tell.Lord! Mr. Hamlin, YOU oughter remember old man Delatour! FromOpelousas, Louisiany, you know! High old sport French style,frilled bosom--open-handed, and us'ter buck ag'in' faro awful!Why, he dropped a heap o' money to YOU over in San Jose two yearsago at poker! You must remember him!"

The slightest possible flush passed over Mr. Hamlin's brow underthe shadow of his hat, but did not get lower than his eyes. Hesuddenly HAD recalled the spendthrift Delatour perfectly, and asquickly regretted now that he had not doubled the honorarium he hadjust sent to his portionless daughter. But he only said, coolly,"No," and then, raising his pale face and audacious eyes, continuedin his laziest and most insulting manner, "no: the fact is, my mindis just now preoccupied in wondering if the gas is leakinganywhere, and if anything is ever served over this bar exceptelegant conversation. When the gentleman who mixes drinks comesback, perhaps you'll be good enough to tell him to send a whiskysour to Mr. Jack Hamlin in the parlor. Meantime, you can turn offyour soda fountain: I don't want any fizz in mine."

Having thus quite recovered himself, Mr. Hamlin lounged gracefullyacross the hall into the parlor. As he did so, a darkish youngman, with a slim boyish figure, a thin face, and a discontentedexpression, rose from an armchair, held out his hand, and, with asaturnine smile, said:--

"Jack!"

"Fred!"

The two men remained gazing at each other with a half-amused, half-guarded expression. Mr. Hamlin was first to begin. "I didn'tthink YOU'D be such a fool as to try on this kind of thing, Fred,"he said, half seriously.

"Yes, but it was to keep you from being a much bigger one that Ihunted you up," said the editor, mischievously. "Read that. I gotit an hour after you left." And he placed a little triumphantly inJack's hand the letter he had received from White Violet.

Mr. Hamlin read it with an unmoved face, and then laid his twohands on the editor's shoulders. "Yes, my young friend, and yousat down and wrote her a pretty letter and sent her twenty dollars--which, permit me to say, was d----d poor pay! But that isn't yourfault, I reckon: it's the meanness of your proprietors."

"But it isn't the question, either, just now, Jack, however youhave been able to answer it. Do you mean to say seriously that youwant to know anything more of a woman who could write such aletter?"

"I don't know," said Jack, cheerfully. "She might be a devilishsight funnier than if she hadn't written it--which is the fact."

"You mean to say SHE didn't write it?"

"Yes."

"Who did, then?"

"Her brother Bob."

After a moment's scrutiny of his friend's bewildered face, Mr.Hamlin briefly related his adventures, from the moment of hismeeting Bob at the mountain-stream to the barkeeper's gossipingcomment and sequel. "Therefore," he concluded, "the author of'Underbrush' is Miss Cynthia Delatour, one of four daughters of awidow who lives two miles from here at the crossing. I shall seeher this evening and make sure; but to-morrow morning you will payme the breakfast you owe me. She's good-looking, but I can't say Ifancy the poetic style: it's a little too high-toned for me.However, I love my love with a C, because she is your Contributor;I hate her with a C, because of her Connections; I met her byChance and treated her with Civility; her name is Cynthia, and shelives on a Cross-road."

"But you surely don't expect you will ever see Bob, again!" saidthe editor, impatiently. "You have trusted him with enough tostart him for the Sandwich Islands, to say nothing of the ruinousprecedent you have established in his mind of the value of poetry.I am surprised that a man of your knowledge of the world would havefaith in that imp the second time."

"My knowledge of the world," returned Mr. Hamlin, sententiously,"tells me that's the only way you can trust anybody. ONCE doesn'tmake a habit, nor show a character. I could see by his bunglingthat he had never tried this on before. Just now the temptation towipe out his punishment by doing the square thing, and coming backa sort of hero, is stronger than any other. 'Tisn't everybody thatgets that chance," he added, with an odd laugh.

Nevertheless, three hours passed without bringing Bob. The two menhad gone to the billiard-room, when a waiter brought a note, whichhe handed to Mr. Hamlin with some apologetic hesitation. It boreno superscription, but had been brought by a boy who described Mr.Hamlin perfectly, and requested that the note should be handed tohim with the remark that "Bob had come back."

"And is he there now?" asked Mr. Hamlin, holding the letterunopened in his hand.

"No, sir; he run right off."

The editor laughed, but Mr. Hamlin, having perused the note, putaway his cue. "Come into my room," he said.

The editor followed, and Mr. Hamlin laid the note before him on thetable. "Bob's all right," he said, "for I'll bet a thousanddollars that note is genuine."

It was delicately written, in a cultivated feminine hand, utterlyunlike the scrawl that had first excited the editor's curiosity,and ran as follows:--

He who brought me the bounty of your friend--for I cannot call arecompense so far above my deserts by any other name--gives me alsoto understand that you wished for an interview. I cannot believethat this is mere idle curiosity, or that you have any motive thatis not kindly and honorable, but I feel that I must beg and prayyou not to seek to remove the veil behind which I have chosen tohide myself and my poor efforts from identification. I THINK Iknow you--I KNOW I know myself--well enough to believe it wouldgive neither of us any happiness. You will say to your generousfriend that he has already given the Unknown more comfort and hopethan could come from any personal compliment or publicity, and youwill yourself believe that you have all unconsciously brightened asad woman's fancy with a Dream and a Vision that before today hadbeen unknown to

WHITE VIOLET.

"Have you read it?" asked Mr. Hamlin.

"Yes."

"Then you don't want to see it any more, or even remember you eversaw it," said Mr. Hamlin, carefully tearing the note into smallpieces and letting them drift from the windows like blown blossoms.

"But, I say, Jack! look here; I don't understand! You say you havealready seen this woman, and yet"--

"I HAVEN'T seen her," said Jack, composedly, turning from thewindow.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean that you and I, Fred, are going to drop this fooling righthere and leave this place for Frisco by first stage to-morrow, and--that I owe you that dinner."

CHAPTER IV

When the stage for San Francisco rolled away the next morning withMr. Hamlin and the editor, the latter might have recognized in theoccupant of a dust-covered buggy that was coming leisurely towardsthem the tall figure, long beard, and straight duster of his latevisitor, Mr. James Bowers. For Mr. Bowers was on the same questthat the others had just abandoned. Like Mr. Hamlin, he had beenleft to his own resources, but Mr. Bowers's resources were a life-long experience and technical skill; he too had noted thetopographical indications of the poem, and his knowledge of thesylva of Upper California pointed as unerringly as Mr. Hamlin'sluck to the cryptogamous haunts of the Summit. Such abnormalgrowths were indicative of certain localities only, but, as theywere not remunerative from a pecuniary point of view, were to beavoided by the sagacious woodman. It was clear, therefore, thatMr. Bowers's visit to Green Springs was not professional, and thathe did not even figuratively accept the omen.

He baited and rested his horse at the hotel, where his bucolicexterior, however, did not elicit that attention which had beenaccorded to Mr. Hamlin's charming insolence or the editor'scultivated manner. But he glanced over a township map on the wallsof the reading-room, and took note of the names of the owners ofdifferent lots, farms, and ranches, passing that of Delatour withthe others. Then he drove leisurely in the direction of the woods,and, reaching them, tied his horse to a young sapling in the shade,and entered their domain with a shambling but familiar woodman'sstep.

It is not the purpose of this brief chronicle to follow Mr. Bowersin his professional diagnosis of the locality. He recognizedNature in one of her moods of wasteful extravagance,--a waste thathis experienced eye could tell was also sapping the vitality ofthose outwardly robust shafts that rose around him. He knew,without testing them, that half of these fair-seeming columns werehollow and rotten at the core; he could detect the chill odor ofdecay through the hot balsamic spices stirred by the wind thatstreamed through their long aisles,--like incense mingling with theexhalations of a crypt. He stopped now and then to part the heavyfronds down to their roots in the dank moss, seeing again, as hehad told the editor, the weird SECOND twilight through theirminiature stems, and the microcosm of life that filled it. But,even while paying this tribute to the accuracy of the unknownpoetess, he was, like his predecessor, haunted more strongly by theatmosphere and melody of her verse. Its spell was upon him, too.Unlike Mr. Hamlin, he did not sing. He only halted once or twice,silently combing his straight narrow beard with his three fingers,until the action seemed to draw down the lines of his face intolimitless dejection, and an inscrutable melancholy filled his smallgray eyes. The few birds which had hailed Mr. Hamlin as theirsuccessful rival fled away before the grotesque and angular half-length of Mr. Bowers, as if the wind had blown in a scarecrow fromthe distant farms.

Suddenly he observed the figure of a woman, with her back towardshim, leaning motionless against a tree, and apparently gazingintently in the direction of Green Springs. He had approached sonear to her that it was singular she had not heard him. Mr. Bowerswas a bashful man in the presence of the other sex. He feltexceedingly embarrassed; if he could have gone away withoutattracting her attention he would have done so. Neither could heremain silent, a tacit spy of her meditation. He had recourse to apolite but singularly artificial cough.

To his surprise, she gave a faint cry, turned quickly towards him,and then shrank back and lapsed quite helpless against the tree.Her evident distress overcame his bashfulness. He ran towards her.

"I'm sorry I frighted ye, ma'am, but I was afraid I might skeer yemore if I lay low, and said nothin'."

Even then, if she had been some fair young country girl, he wouldhave relapsed after this speech into his former bashfulness. Butthe face and figure she turned towards him were neither young norfair: a woman past forty, with gray threads and splashes in herbrushed-back hair, which was turned over her ears in two curls likefrayed strands of rope. Her forehead was rather high than broad,her nose large but well-shaped, and her eyes full but so singularlylight in color as to seem almost sightless. The short upper lip ofher large mouth displayed her teeth in an habitual smile, which wasin turn so flatly contradicted by every other line of her carewornface that it seemed gratuitously artificial. Her figure was hiddenby a shapeless garment that partook equally of the shawl, cloak,and wrapper.

"I am very foolish," she began, in a voice and accent that at onceasserted a cultivated woman, "but I so seldom meet anybody herethat a voice quite startled me. That, and the heat," she went on,wiping her face, into which the color was returning violently--"forI seldom go out as early as this--I suppose affected me."

Mr. Bowers had that innate Far-Western reverence for womanhoodwhich I fancy challenges the most polished politeness. He remainedpatient, undemonstrative, self-effacing, and respectful before her,his angular arm slightly but not obtrusively advanced, the offer ofprotection being in the act rather than in any spoken word, andrequiring no response.

"Like as not, ma'am," he said, cheerfully looking everywhere but inher burning face. "The sun IS pow'ful hot at this time o' day; Ifelt it myself comin' yer, and, though the damp of this timberkinder sets it back, it's likely to come out ag'in. Ye can't checkit no more than the sap in that choked limb thar"--he pointedostentatiously where a fallen pine had been caught in the bent andtwisted arm of another, but which still put out a few green tasselsbeyond the point of impact. "Do you live far from here, ma'am?" headded.

"Only as far as the first turning below the hill."

"I've got my buggy here, and I'm goin' that way, and I can jist setye down thar cool and comfortable. Ef," he continued, in the sameassuring tone, without waiting for a reply, "ye'll jist take a goodgrip of my arm thar," curving his wrist and hand behind him like ashepherd's crook, "I'll go first, and break away the brush for ye."

She obeyed mechanically, and they fared on through the thick fernsin this fashion for some moments, he looking ahead, occasionallydropping a word of caution or encouragement, but never glancing ather face. When they reached the buggy he lifted her into itcarefully,--and perpendicularly, it struck her afterwards, verymuch as if she had been a transplanted sapling with bared andsensitive roots,--and then gravely took his place beside her.

"Bein' in the timber trade myself, ma'am," he said, gathering upthe reins, "I chanced to sight these woods, and took a look around.My name is Bowers, of Mendocino; I reckon there ain't much thatgrows in the way o' standin' timber on the Pacific Slope that Idon't know and can't locate, though I DO say it. I've got ez big amill, and ez big a run in my district, ez there is anywhere. Efyou're ever up my way, you ask for Bowers--Jim Bowers--and that'sME."

There is probably nothing more conducive to conversation betweenstrangers than a wholesome and early recognition of each other'sfoibles. Mr. Bowers, believing his chance acquaintance a superiorwoman, naively spoke of himself in a way that he hoped wouldreassure her that she was not compromising herself in accepting hiscivility, and so satisfy what must be her inevitable pride. On theother hand, the woman regained her self-possession by thisexhibition of Mr. Bowers's vanity, and, revived by the refreshingbreeze caused by the rapid motion of the buggy along the road,thanked him graciously.

"I suppose there are many strangers at the Green Springs Hotel,"she said, after a pause.

"I didn't get to see 'em, as I only put up my hoss there," hereplied. "But I know the stage took some away this mornin': itseemed pretty well loaded up when I passed it."

The woman drew a deep sigh. The act struck Mr. Bowers as apossible return of her former nervous weakness. Her attention mustat once be distracted at any cost--even conversation.

"Perhaps," he began, with sudden and appalling lightness, "I'ma-talkin' to Mrs. McFadden?"

"No," said the woman, abstractedly.

"Then it must be Mrs. Delatour? There are only two township lotson that crossroad."

"My name IS Delatour," she said, somewhat wearily.

Mr. Bowers was conversationally stranded. He was not at allanxious to know her name, yet, knowing it now, it seemed to suggestthat there was nothing more to say. He would, of course, havepreferred to ask her if she had read the poetry about theUnderbrush, and if she knew the poetess, and what she thought ofit; but the fact that she appeared to be an "eddicated" woman madehim sensitive of displaying technical ignorance in his manner oftalking about it. She might ask him if it was "subjective or"objective"--two words he had heard used at the Debating Society atMendocino on the question, "Is poetry morally beneficial?" For afew moments he was silent. But presently she took the initiativein conversation, at first slowly and abstractedly, and then, as ifappreciating his sympathetic reticence, or mayhap finding somerelief in monotonous expression, talked mechanically, deliberately,but unostentatiously about herself. So colorless was herintonation that at times it did not seem as if she was talking tohim, but repeating some conversation she had held with another.

She had lived there ever since she had been in California. Herhusband had bought the Spanish title to the property when theyfirst married. The property at his death was found to be greatlyinvolved; she had been obliged to part with much of it to supporther children--four girls and a boy. She had been compelled towithdraw the girls from the convent at Santa Clara to help aboutthe house; the boy was too young--she feared, too shiftless--to doanything. The farm did not pay; the land was poor; she knewnothing about farming; she had been brought up in New Orleans,where her father had been a judge, and she didn't understandcountry life. Of course she had been married too young--as allgirls were. Lately she had thought of selling off and moving toSan Francisco, where she would open a boarding-house or a schoolfor young ladies. He could advise her, perhaps, of some goodopportunity. Her own girls were far enough advanced to assist herin teaching; one particularly, Cynthia, was quite clever, and spokeFrench and Spanish fluently.

As Mr. Bowers was familiar with many of these counts in thefeminine American indictment of life generally, he was not perhapsgreatly moved. But in the last sentence he thought he saw anopening to return to his main object, and, looking up cautiously,said:--

"And mebbe write po'try now and then?" To his great discomfiture,the only effect of this suggestion was to check his companion'sspeech for some moments and apparently throw her back into herformer abstraction. Yet, after a long pause, as they were turninginto the lane, she said, as if continuing the subject:--

The yawning breaches in the Delatour gates and fences presentlycame in view. They were supposed to be reinforced by half a dozendogs, who, however, did their duty with what would seem to be theprevailing inefficiency, retiring after a single perfunctory yelpto shameless stretching, scratching, and slumber. Their placeswere taken on the veranda by two negro servants, two girlsrespectively of eight and eleven, and a boy of fourteen, whoremained silently staring. As Mr. Bowers had accepted the widow'spolite invitation to enter, she was compelled, albeit in an equallydazed and helpless way, to issue some preliminary orders:--

"Now, Chloe--I mean aunt Dinah--do take Eunice--I mean Victorineand Una--away, and--you know--tidy them; and you, Sarah--it'sSarah, isn't it?--lay some refreshment in the parlor for thisgentleman. And, Bob, tell your sister Cynthia to come here withEunice." As Bob still remained staring at Mr. Bowers, she added,in weary explanation, "Mr. Bowers brought me over from the Summitwoods in his buggy--it was so hot. There--shake hands and thankhim, and run away--do!"

They crossed a broad but scantily-furnished hall. Everywhere thesame look of hopeless incompleteness, temporary utility, andpremature decay; most of the furniture was mismatched andmisplaced; many of the rooms had changed their original functionsor doubled them; a smell of cooking came from the library, on whoseshelves, mingled with books, were dresses and household linen, andthrough the door of a room into which Mrs. Delatour retired toremove her duster Mr. Bowers caught a glimpse of a bed, and of atable covered with books and papers, at which a tall, fair girl waswriting. In a few moments Mrs. Delatour returned, accompanied bythis girl, and Eunice, her short-lipped sister. Bob, who joinedthe party seated around Mr. Bowers and a table set with cake, adecanter, and glasses, completed the group. Emboldened by thepresence of the tall Cynthia and his glimpse of her previousliterary attitude, Mr. Bowers resolved to make one more attempt.

"I suppose these yer young ladies sometimes go to the wood, too?"As his eye rested on Cynthia, she replied:--

"Oh, yes."

"I reckon on account of the purty shadows down in the brush, andthe soft light, eh? and all that?" he continued, with a playfulmanner but a serious accession of color.

"Why, the woods belong to us. It's mar's property!" broke inEunice with a flash of teeth.

"Well, Lordy, I wanter know!" said Mr. Bowers, in some astonishment."Why, that's right in my line, too! I've been sightin' timber allalong here, and that's how I dropped in on yer mar." Then, seeing alook of eagerness light up the faces of Bob and Eunice, he wasencouraged to make the most of his opportunity. "Why, ma'am," hewent on, cheerfully, "I reckon you're holdin' that wood at a prettystiff figger, now."

"Why?" asked Mrs. Delatour, simply.

Mr. Bowers delivered a wink at Bob and Eunice, who were stillwatching him with anxiety. "Well, not on account of the actooltimber, for the best of it ain't sound," he said, "but on accountof its bein' famous! Everybody that reads that pow'ful pretty poemabout it in the 'Excelsior Magazine' wants to see it. Why, itwould pay the Green Springs hotel-keeper to buy it up for hiscustomers. But I s'pose you reckon to keep it--along with thepoetess--in your famerly?"

Although Mr. Bowers long considered this speech as the happiest andmost brilliant effort of his life, its immediate effect was not,perhaps, all that could be desired. The widow turned upon him arestrained and darkening face. Cynthia half rose with an appealing"Oh, mar!" and Bob and Eunice, having apparently pinched each otherto the last stage of endurance, retired precipitately from the roomin a prolonged giggle.

"I have not yet thought of disposing of the Summit woods, Mr.Bowers," said Mrs. Delatour, coldly, "but if I should do so, I willconsult you. You must excuse the children, who see so littlecompany, they are quite unmanageable when strangers are present.Cynthia, WILL you see if the servants have looked after Mr.Bowers's horse? You know Bob is not to be trusted."

There was clearly nothing else for Mr. Bowers to do but to take hisleave, which he did respectfully, if not altogether hopefully. Butwhen he had reached the lane, his horse shied from the unwontedspectacle of Bob, swinging his hat, and apparently awaiting him,from the fork of a wayside sapling.

"Drive 'longside the fence in the shadder." As Mr. Bowers obeyed,Bob approached the wheels of the buggy in a manner half shy, halfmysterious. "You wanter buy them Summit woods, mister?"

"Well, per'aps, sonny. Why?" smiled Mr. Bowers.

"Coz I'll tell ye suthin'. Don't you be fooled into allowin' thatCynthia wrote that po'try. She didn't--no more'n Eunice nor me.Mar kinder let ye think it, 'cos she don't want folks to think SHEdid it. But mar wrote that po'try herself; wrote it out o' themthar woods--all by herself. Thar's a heap more po'try thar, youbet, and jist as good. And she's the one that kin write it--youhear me? That's my mar, every time! You buy that thar wood, andget mar to run it for po'try, and you'll make your pile, sure! Iain't lyin'. You'd better look spry: thar's another fellersnoopin' 'round yere--only he barked up the wrong tree, and thoughtit was Cynthia, jist as you did."

"Another feller?" repeated the astonished Bowers.

"Yes; a rig'lar sport. He was orful keen on that po'try, too, youbet. So you'd better hump yourself afore somebody else cuts in.Mar got a hundred dollars for that pome, from that editor fellerand his pardner. I reckon that's the rig'lar price, eh?" he added,with a sudden suspicious caution.

Mr. Bowers no longer doubted it. Disappointed as he undoubtedlywas at first,--and even self-deceived,--he recognized in a flashthe grim fact that the boy had stated. He recalled the apparitionof the sad-faced woman in the wood--her distressed manner, that tohis inexperienced mind now took upon itself the agitated tremblingof disturbed mystic inspiration. A sense of sadness and remorsesucceeded his first shock of disappointment.

"Well, are ye going to buy the woods?" said Bob, eying him grimly."Ye'd better say."

Mr. Bowers started. "I shouldn't wonder, Bob," he said, with asmile, gathering up his reins. "Anyhow, I'm comin' back to seeyour mother this afternoon. And meantime, Bob, you keep the firstchance for me."

He drove away, leaving the youthful diplomatist standing with hisbare feet in the dust. For a minute or two the young gentlemanamused himself by a few light saltatory steps in the road. Then asmile of scornful superiority, mingled perhaps with a sense ofprevious slights and unappreciation, drew back his little upperlip, and brightened his mottled cheek.

"I'd like ter know," he said, darkly, "what this yer God-forsakenfamerly would do without ME!"

CHAPTER V

It is to be presumed that the editor and Mr. Hamlin mutually keptto their tacit agreement to respect the impersonality of thepoetess, for during the next three months the subject was seldomalluded to by either. Yet in that period White Violet had sent twoother contributions, and on each occasion Mr. Hamlin had insistedupon increasing the honorarium to the amount of his former gift.In vain the editor pointed out the danger of this form ofmunificence; Mr. Hamlin retorted by saying that if he refused hewould appeal to the proprietor, who certainly would not object totaking the credit of this liberality. "As to the risks," concludedJack, sententiously, "I'll take them; and as far as you'reconcerned, you certainly get the worth of your money."

Indeed, if popularity was an indiction, this had become suddenlytrue. For the poetess's third contribution, without changing itsstrong local color and individuality, had been an unexpectedoutburst of human passion--a love-song, that touched those to whomthe subtler meditative graces of the poetess had been unknown.Many people had listened to this impassioned but despairing cryfrom some remote and charmed solitude, who had never read poetrybefore, who translated it into their own limited vocabulary andmore limited experience, and were inexpressibly affected to findthat they, too, understood it; it was caught up and echoed by thefeverish, adventurous, and unsatisfied life that filled that dayand time. Even the editor was surprised and frightened. Like mostcultivated men, he distrusted popularity: like all men who believein their own individual judgment, he doubted collective wisdom.Yet now that his protegee had been accepted by others, hequestioned that judgment and became her critic. It struck him thather sudden outburst was strained; it seemed to him that in thismere contortion of passion the sibyl's robe had become rudelydisarranged. He spoke to Hamlin, and even approached the tabooedsubject.

"Did you see anything that suggested this sort of business in--in--that woman--I mean in--your pilgrimage, Jack?"

"No," responded Jack, gravely. "But it's easy to see she's gothold of some hay-footed fellow up there in the mountains withstraws in his hair, and is playing him for all he's worth. Youwon't get much more poetry out of her, I reckon."

Is was not long after this conversation that one afternoon, whenthe editor was alone, Mr. James Bowers entered the editorial roomwith much of the hesitation and irresolution of his previous visit.As the editor had not only forgotten him, but even, dissociated himwith the poetess, Mr. Bowers was fain to meet his unresponsive eyeand manner with some explanation.

"Ye disremember my comin' here, Mr. Editor, to ask you the name o'the lady who called herself 'White Violet,' and how you allowed youcouldn't give it, but would write and ask for it?"

Mr. Editor, leaning back in his chair, now remembered theoccurrence, but was distressed to add that the situation remainedunchanged, and that he had received no such permission.

"Never mind THAT, my lad," said Mr. Bowers, gravely, waving hishand. "I understand all that; but, ez I've known the lady eversince, and am now visiting her at her house on the Summit, I reckonit don't make much matter."

It was quite characteristic of Mr. Bowers's smileless earnestnessthat he made no ostentation of this dramatic retort, nor of theundisguised stupefaction of the editor.

"Do you mean to say that you have met White Violet, the author ofthese poems?" repeated the editor.

"Which her name is Delatour,--the widder Delatour,--ez she hasherself give me permission to tell you," continued Mr. Bowers, witha certain abstracted and automatic precision that dissipated anysuggestion of malice in the reversed situation.

"Delatour!--a widow!" repeated the editor.

"With five children," continued Mr. Bowers. Then, with unalterablegravity, he briefly gave an outline of her condition and thecircumstances of his acquaintance with her.

"But I reckoned YOU might have known suthin' o' this; though shenever let on you did," he concluded, eying the editor with troubledcuriosity.

The editor did not think it necessary to implicate Mr. Hamlin. Hesaid, briefly, "I? Oh, no!"

"Of course, YOU might not have seen her?" said Mr. Bowers, keepingthe same grave, troubled gaze on the editor.

"Of course not," said the editor, somewhat impatient under thesingular scrutiny of Mr. Bowers; "and I'm very anxious to know howshe looks. Tell me, what is she like?"

"She is a fine, pow'ful, eddicated woman," said Mr. Bowers, withslow deliberation. "Yes, sir,--a pow'ful woman, havin' grand ideasof her own, and holdin' to 'em." He had withdrawn his eyes fromthe editor, and apparently addressed the ceiling in confidence.

"But what does she look like, Mr. Bowers?" said the editor,smiling.

"Well, sir, she looks--LIKE--IT! Yes,"--with deliberate caution,--"I should say, just like it."

After a pause, apparently to allow the editor to materialize thisravishing description, he said, gently, "Are you busy just now?"

"Not very. What can I do for you?"

"Well, not much for ME, I reckon," he returned, with a deeperrespiration, that was his nearest approach to a sigh, "but suthin'perhaps for yourself and--another. Are you married?"

"No," said the editor, promptly.

"Nor engaged to any--young lady?"--with great politeness.

"No."

"Well, mebbe you think it a queer thing for me to say,--mebbe youreckon you KNOW it ez well ez anybody,--but it's my opinion thatWhite Violet is in love with you."

"With me?" ejaculated the editor, in a hopeless astonishment thatat last gave way to an incredulous and irresistible laugh.

A slight touch of pain passed over Mr. Bowers's dejected face, butleft the deep outlines set with a rude dignity. "It's SO," hesaid, slowly, "though, as a young man and a gay feller, ye maythink it's funny."

"No, not funny, but a terrible blunder, Mr. Bowers, for I give youmy word I know nothing of the lady and have never set eyes uponher."

"No, but she has on YOU. I can't say," continued Mr. Bowers, withsublime naivete, "that I'd ever recognize you from her description,but a woman o' that kind don't see with her eyes like you and me,but with all her senses to onct, and a heap more that ain't sensesas we know 'em. The same eyes that seed down through the brush andferns in the Summit woods, the same ears that heerd the music ofthe wind trailin' through the pines, don't see you with my eyes orhear you with my ears. And when she paints you, it's nat'ril for awoman with that pow'ful mind and grand idees to dip her brush intoher heart's blood for warmth and color. Yer smilin', young man.Well, go on and smile at me, my lad, but not at her. For you don'tknow her. When you know her story as I do, when you know she wasmade a wife afore she ever knew what it was to be a young woman,when you know that the man she married never understood the kind o'critter he was tied to no more than ef he'd been a steer yoked to aMorgan colt, when ye know she had children growin' up around herafore she had given over bein' a sort of child herself, when yeknow she worked and slaved for that man and those children aboutthe house--her heart, her soul, and all her pow'ful mind bein' allthe time in the woods along with the flickering leaves and theshadders,--when ye mind she couldn't get the small ways o' theranch because she had the big ways o' Natur' that made it,--thenyou'll understand her."

Impressed by the sincerity of his visitor's manner, touched by theunexpected poetry of his appeal, and yet keenly alive to theabsurdity of an incomprehensible blunder somewhere committed, theeditor gasped almost hysterically,--

"But why should all this make her in love with ME?"

"Because ye are both gifted," returned Mr. Bowers, with sad butunconquerable conviction; "because ye're both, so to speak, in aline o' idees and business that draws ye together,--to lean on eachother and trust each other ez pardners. Not that YE are ezakly herekal," he went on, with a return to his previous exasperatingnaivete, "though I've heerd promisin' things of ye, and ye're stillyoung, but in matters o' this kind there is allers one ez hez to belooked up to by the other,--and gin'rally the wrong one. She looksup to you, Mr. Editor,--it's part of her po'try,--ez she looks downinter the brush and sees more than is plain to you and me. Not,"he continued, with a courteously deprecating wave of the hand, "ezyou hain't bin kind to her--mebbe TOO kind. For thar's the purtyletter you writ her, thar's the perlite, easy, captivatin' way youhad with her gals and that boy--hold on!"--as the editor made agesture of despairing renunciation,--"I ain't sayin' you ain'tright in keepin' it to yourself,--and thar's the extry money yousent her every time. Stop! she knows it was EXTRY, for she made ap'int o' gettin' me to find out the market price o' po'try inpapers and magazines, and she reckons you've bin payin' her fourhundred per cent. above them figgers--hold on! I ain't sayin' itain't free and liberal in you, and I'd have done the same thing;yet SHE thinks"--

But the editor had risen hastily to his feet with flushing cheeks.

"One moment, Mr. Bowers," he said, hurriedly. "This is the mostdreadful blunder of all. The gift is not mine. It was thespontaneous offering of another who really admired our friend'swork,--a gentleman who"-- He stopped suddenly.

The sound of a familiar voice, lightly humming, was borne along thepassage; the light tread of a familiar foot was approaching. Theeditor turned quickly towards the open door,--so quickly that Mr.Bowers was fain to turn also.

For a charming instant the figure of Jack Hamlin, handsome,careless, and confident, was framed in the doorway. His dark eyes,with their habitual scorn of his average fellow-man, sweptsuperciliously over Mr. Bowers, and rested for an instant withcaressing familiarity on the editor.

"You see," continued the editor, turning to Mr. Bowers, "there hasbeen a mistake. I"--but he stopped suddenly at the ashen face ofMr. Bowers, still fixed in the direction of the vanished figure.

"Are you ill?"

Mr. Bowers did not reply, but slowly withdrew his eyes, and turnedthem heavily on the editor. Then, drawing a longer, deeper breath,he picked up his soft felt hat, and, moulding it into shape in hishands as if preparing to put it on, he moistened his dry, grayishlips, and said, gently:--

"Friend o' yours?"

"Yes," said the editor--"Jack Hamlin. Of course, you know him?"

"Yes."

Mr. Bowers here put his hat on his head, and, after a pause, turnedround slowly once or twice, as if he had forgotten it, and wasstill seeking it. Finally he succeeded in finding the editor'shand, and shook it, albeit his own trembled slightly. Then hesaid:--

"I reckon you're right. There's bin a mistake. I see it now.Good-by. If you're ever up my way, drop in and see me." He thenwalked to the doorway, passed out, and seemed to melt into theafternoon shadows of the hall.

He never again entered the office of the "Excelsior Magazine,"neither was any further contribution ever received from WhiteViolet. To a polite entreaty from the editor, addressed first to"White Violet" and then to Mrs. Delatour, there was no response.The thought of Mr. Hamlin's cynical prophecy disturbed him, butthat gentleman, preoccupied in filling some professionalengagements in Sacramento, gave him no chance to acquire furtherexplanations as to the past or the future. The youthful editor wasat first in despair and filled with a vague remorse of someunfulfilled duty. But, to his surprise, the readers of themagazine seemed to survive their talented contributor, and thefeverish life that had been thrilled by her song, in two months hadapparently forgotten her. Nor was her voice lifted from any alienquarter; the domestic and foreign press that had echoed her laysseemed to respond no longer to her utterance.

It is possible that some readers of these pages may remember aprevious chronicle by the same historian wherein it was recordedthat the volatile spirit of Mr. Hamlin, slightly assisted bycircumstances, passed beyond these voices at the Ranch of theBlessed Fisherman, some two years later. As the editor stoodbeside the body of his friend on the morning of the funeral, henoticed among the flowers laid upon his bier by loving hands awreath of white violets. Touched and disturbed by a memory longsince forgotten, he was further embarrassed, as the cortegedispersed in the Mission graveyard, by the apparition of the tallfigure of Mr. James Bowers from behind a monumental column. Theeditor turned to him quickly.

"I am glad to see you here," he said, awkwardly, and he knew notwhy; then, after a pause, "I trust you can give me some news ofMrs. Delatour. I wrote to her nearly two years ago, but had noresponse."

"Thar's bin no Mrs. Delatour for two years," said Mr. Bowers,contemplatively stroking his beard; "and mebbe that's why. She'sbin for two years Mrs. Bowers."

"I congratulate you," said the editor; "but I hope there stillremains a White Violet, and that, for the sake of literature, shehas not given up"--

"Mrs. Bowers," interrupted Mr. Bowers, with singular deliberation,"found that makin' po'try and tendin' to the cares of a growin'-upfamerly was irritatin' to the narves. They didn't jibe, so tospeak. What Mrs. Bowers wanted--and what, po'try or no po'try,I've bin tryin' to give her--was Rest! She's bin havin' itcomfor'bly up at my ranch at Mendocino, with her children and me.Yes, sir"--his eye wandered accidentally to the new-made grave--"you'll excuse my sayin' it to a man in your profession, but it'swhat most folks will find is a heap better than readin' or writin'or actin' po'try--and that's Rest!"

THE CHATELAINE OF BURNT RIDGE

CHAPTER I

It had grown dark on Burnt Ridge. Seen from below, the wholeserrated crest that had glittered in the sunset as if itsinterstices were eaten by consuming fires, now, closed up its ranksof blackened shafts and became again harsh and sombre chevaux defrise against the sky. A faint glow still lingered over the redvalley road, as if it were its own reflection, rather than anylight from beyond the darkened ridge. Night was already creepingup out of remote canyons and along the furrowed flanks of themountain, or settling on the nearer woods with the sound of home-coming and innumerable wings. At a point where the road began toencroach upon the mountain-side in its slow winding ascent thedarkness had become so real that a young girl cantering along therising terrace found difficulty in guiding her horse, with eyesstill dazzled by the sunset fires.

In spite of her precautions, the animal suddenly shied at someobject in the obscured roadway, and nearly unseated her. Theaccident disclosed not only the fact that she was riding in a man'ssaddle, but also a foot and ankle that her ordinary walking-dresswas too short to hide. It was evident that her equestrian exercisewas extempore, and that at that hour and on that road she had notexpected to meet company. But she was apparently a good horsewoman,for the mischance which might have thrown a less practical or moretimid rider seemed of little moment to her. With a strong hand anddetermined gesture she wheeled her frightened horse back into thetrack, and rode him directly at the object. But here she herselfslightly recoiled, for it was the body of a man lying in the road.

As she leaned forward over her horse's shoulder, she could see bythe dim light that he was a miner, and that, though motionless, hewas breathing stertorously. Drunk, no doubt!--an accident of thelocality alarming only to her horse. But although she canteredimpatiently forward, she had not proceeded a hundred yards beforeshe stopped reflectively, and trotted back again. He had notmoved. She could now see that his head and shoulders were coveredwith broken clods of earth and gravel, and smaller fragments lay athis side. A dozen feet above him on the hillside there was a foottrail which ran parallel with the bridle-road, and occasionallyoverhung it. It seemed possible that he might have fallen from thetrail and been stunned.

Dismounting, she succeeded in dragging him to a safer position bythe bank. The act discovered his face, which was young, andunknown to her. Wiping it with the silk handkerchief which wasloosely slung around his neck after the fashion of his class, shegave a quick feminine glance around her and then approached her ownand rather handsome face near his lips. There was no odor ofalcohol in the thick and heavy respiration. Mounting again, sherode forward at an accelerated pace, and in twenty minutes hadreached a higher tableland of the mountain, a cleared opening inthe forest that showed signs of careful cultivation, and a large,rambling, yet picturesque-looking dwelling, whose unpainted red-wood walls were hidden in roses and creepers. Pushing open aswinging gate, she entered the inclosure as a brown-faced man,dressed as a vaquero, came towards her as if to assist her toalight. But she had already leaped to the ground and thrown himthe reins.

"Miguel," she said, with a mistress's quiet authority in her boyishcontralto voice, "put Glory in the covered wagon, and drive downthe road as far as the valley turning. There's a man lying nearthe right bank, drunk, or sick, may be, or perhaps crippled by afall. Bring him up here, unless somebody has found him already, oryou happen to know who he is and where to take him."

The vaquero raised his shoulders, half in disappointed expectationof some other command. "And your brother, senora, he has nothimself arrived."

A light shadow of impatience crossed her face. "No," she said,bluntly. "Come, be quick."

She turned towards the house as the man moved away. Already agaunt-looking old man had appeared in the porch, and was awaitingher with his hand shadowing his angry, suspicious eyes, and hislips moving querulously.

"Of course, you've got to stand out there and give orders and 'tendto your own business afore you think o' speaking to your own fleshand blood," he said aggrievedly. "That's all YOU care!"

"There was a sick man lying in the road, and I've sent Miguel tolook after him," returned the girl, with a certain contemptuousresignation.

"Oh, yes!" struck in another voice, which seemed to belong to thefemale of the first speaker's species, and to be its equal in ageand temper, "and I reckon you saw a jay bird on a tree, or asquirrel on the fence, and either of 'em was more important to youthan your own brother."

"Steve didn't come by the stage, and didn't send any message,"continued the young girl, with the same coldly resigned manner."No one had any news of him, and, as I told you before, I didn'texpect any."

"Why don't you say right out you didn't WANT any?" said the oldman, sneeringly. "Much you inquired! No; I orter hev gone myself,and I would if I was master here, instead of me and your motherbein' the dust of the yearth beneath your feet."

The young girl entered the house, followed by the old man, passingan old woman seated by the window, who seemed to be nursing herresentment and a large Bible which she held clasped against hershawled bosom at the same moment. Going to the wall, she hung upher large hat and slightly shook the red dust from her skirts asshe continued her explanation, in the same deep voice, with acertain monotony of logic and possibly of purpose and practicealso.

"You and mother know as well as I do, father, that Stephen is nomore to be depended upon than the wind that blows. It's threeyears since he has been promising to come, and even getting moneyto come, and yet he has never showed his face, though he has been adozen times within five miles of this house. He doesn't comebecause he doesn't want to come. As to YOUR going over to thestage-office, I went there myself at the last moment to save youthe mortification of asking questions of strangers that they knowhave been a dozen times answered already."

There was such a ring of absolute truthfulness, albeit worn byrepetition, in the young girl's deep honest voice that for oneinstant her two more emotional relatives quailed before it; butonly for a moment.

"That's right!" shrilled the old woman. "Go on and abuse your ownbrother. It's only the fear you have that he'll make his fortuneyet and shame you before the father and mother you despise."

The young girl remained standing by the window, motionless andapparently passive, as if receiving an accepted and usualpunishment. But here the elder woman gave way to sobs and someincoherent snuffling, at which the younger went away. Whether sherecognized in her mother's tears the ordinary deliquescence ofemotion, or whether, as a woman herself, she knew that this merefeminine conventionality could not possibly be directed at her, andthat the actual conflict between them had ceased, she passed slowlyon to an inner hall, leaving the male victim, her unfortunatefather, to succumb, as he always did sooner or later, to theirinfluence. Crossing the hall, which was decorated with a few elkhorns, Indian trophies, and mountain pelts, she entered anotherroom, and closed the door behind her with a gesture of relief.

The room, which looked upon a porch, presented a singularcombination of masculine business occupations and feminine tasteand adornment. A desk covered with papers, a shelf displaying aledger and account-books, another containing works of reference, atable with a vase of flowers and a lady's riding-whip upon it, amap of California flanked on either side by an embroidered silkenworkbag and an oval mirror decked with grasses, a calendar andinterest-table hanging below two school-girl crayons of classicheads with the legend, "Josephine Forsyth fecit,"--were part of itsincongruous accessories. The young girl went to her desk, butpresently moved and turned towards the window thoughtfully. Thelast gleam had died from the steel-blue sky; a few lights like starpoints began to prick out the lower valley. The expression ofmonotonous restraint and endurance had not yet faded from her face.

Yet she had been accustomed to scenes like the one she had justpassed though since her girlhood. Five years ago, AlexanderForsyth, her uncle, had brought her to this spot--then a mere logcabin on the hillside--as a refuge from the impoverished andshiftless home of his elder brother Thomas and his ill-temperedwife. Here Alexander Forsyth, by reason of his more dominantcharacter and business capacity, had prospered until he became arich and influential ranch owner. Notwithstanding her father'sjealousy of Alexander's fortune, and the open rupture that followedbetween the brothers, Josephine retained her position in the heartand home of her uncle without espousing the cause of either; andher father was too prudent not to recognize the near andprospective advantages of such a mediator. Accustomed to herparents' extravagant denunciations, and her uncle's more repressedbut practical contempt of them, the unfortunate girl earlydeveloped a cynical disbelief in the virtues of kinship in theabstract, and a philosophical resignation to its effects upon herpersonally. Believing that her father and uncle fairly representedthe fraternal principle, she was quite prepared for the earlydefection and distrust of her vagabond and dissipated brotherStephen, and accepted it calmly. True to an odd standard ofjustice, which she had erected from the crumbling ruins of her owndomestic life, she was tolerant of everything but human perfection.This quality, however fatal to her higher growth, had given her apeculiar capacity for business which endeared her to her uncle.Familiar with the strong passions and prejudices of men, she hadnone of those feminine meannesses, a wholesome distrust of whichhad kept her uncle a bachelor. It was not strange, therefore, thatwhen he died two years ago it was found that he had left her hisentire property, real and personal, limited only by a singlecondition. She was to undertake the vocation of a "sole trader,"and carry on the business under the name of "J. Forsyth." If shemarried, the estate and property was to be held distinct from herhusband's, inalienable under the "Married Woman's Property Act,"and subject during her life only to her own control and personal